Some in this crowd recommend all discussion about climate change be limited to only one side of the equation: their side! Apparently, tolerance and diversity of different points of view are mere talking points to the global warming elitist never to put into actual practice.

Let's take a step back and objectively analyze what most in the scientific community agree to be true about the history of climate change the Earth has experienced over the last billion years or so.

Our planet has undergone an Ice Age or more precisely, a Glacial Age four times over the last billion years. As the Earth cooled, large areas of the globe became encased with sheets of ice, often over a mile deep that would remain for millions of years per Glacial Age. These glaciers would advance and recede as the Earth would alternately cool down and then warm up, permanently changing the landscape of the continents. Scientists offer various theories for these extreme climate changes, such as variations in the Earth's orbit (Milankovitch cycle), volcanism or continental movement, among others. The scientific community unanimously agrees however, that primates driving Humvees over the frozen tundras or Neanderthals chasing down woolly mammoths in their Ford 150s is not on their list of theories explaining the Glacial Age.

In 1986, analysis of the Alpine glaciers during the time 100 AD to 400 AD discovered that this period was significantly warmer than the span immediately preceding and then following this era. Appropriately enough, this was called the Roman Warm Period. The reduction in solar radiation reaching the Earth was theorized to cause the cooling before and after this period. Sorry, no Gucci factories in Italy at the time. Besides, the start of the industrial revolution was still 1,300 years away.

Recently, NASA scientists have reported periods of both warming and cooling occurring in the Arctic over the last 20 years. Parts of the Arctic will experience some melting followed by extensive freezing in other areas. Where have we seen this before on a much grander scale? (See Glacial Age). Climate fluctuations continue to happen as they have for hundreds of millions of years, with or without the interference of humans.

So what is the ultimate goal of the global warming crowd? Money and power.

In her Jan. 5 letter to the editor, Rabbi Judy Weiss, a member of the Boston chapter of the Citizens Climate Lobby stated as much. It is called a carbon tax. The carbon tax is a mechanism by the left to further empower governments the sole discretion to dictate certain behavior of its citizens. This is both a regressive and punitive tax that will cripple businesses, kill job growth and allow authorities to, at their sole discretion, implement policies of land use, both public and private. The carbon tax scheme is so toxic, the U.S. Senate, where there is a Democrat majority, defeated this proposal in a bi-partisan vote.

Rahm Emanuel, the former chief of staff for President Obama, once said, "Don't let a good crisis go to waste." What he failed to say was "real" or "imagined."

This is what Al "the planet has a fever" Gore and his cohorts of the global warming alarmist bunch have perpetuated. These insidious groups have created an imagined crisis of man-made Earth warming in order to shake down the taxpayer of hundreds of billions of dollars while simultaneously lining the pockets of individuals like Al Gore. Time to give up the private jet and three homes, Al.

P.T. Barnum, the great showman, once said, "There's a sucker born every minute." Well, I think it's time to finally bring down the curtain on this gaudy road show called "man-made climate change."